Ireland hooker Rob Herring believes the best is yet to come from Joe Schmidt’s side as they toast their series win over Australia.

A 20-16 success at the Allianz Stadium in Sydney brought the curtain down on Ireland’s most successful season in style.

Their first series triumph over one of the southern hemisphere’s traditional big three since 1979 added to their dominant Grand Slam success.

With captain Rory Best out of the tour through injury, his Ulster team-mate Herring was one of the relatively unheralded players to get an opportunity on this tour, starting the first Test and coming off the bench in games two and three.

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“Being out there on the pitch after the game, the support we’ve had throughout this tour has been phenomenal and we were out there, clapping on the crowd – it’s just those memories that will live forever.

“Hopefully, there is more to come, it’s a massive 18 months coming up for us. We’ll keep building to the World Cup.”

Ireland survived some nervous moments in Saturday’s game but Herring believes the confidence they have built through their successful campaign stood them in good stead.

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“There’s a lot of belief in the squad and we’ve shown throughout the last year that we can come back and hold out in those big moments,” he said.

“That’s the kind of belief you need to keep building on going into a World Cup. We’re quite a tight group and from these three and a half weeks we’ve been on tour, that sense of being tight-knit has grown considerably.

“That showed in the last few Tests. When we put our minds to it, we can be pretty good.”